When Crispin Pierce, associate professor of environmental public health at UW-Eau Claire arrived back in the United States from a semester in Finland, he had a culture shock of the health and food variety.

“I did a Fulbright in Finland last year,” Pierce said, “And, you know, people [in Finland] are hiking and they’re healthy. I come back to America and it’s like, Boom! You know, it’s like, we really are shortening our lives and we’re shorting our
healthy lifespans.”

In an effort to promote healthy eating in Eau Claire, some students in Pierce’s course, Introduction to Environmental Health, are busy researching and creating a plan for a Farm-to-Work program that will involve city employees.

Senior Alexandria Berg, a member of the group who is working on the Farm-to-Work program, said when people head off to work, their food is usually unhealthy fast food or a wrongly packed lunch. The Farm-to-Work program is a way to get fresh food to workers.

Berg, sophomore Megan Schumaker and the class researching the Farm-to-Work program hope to have it implemented with Eau Claire city workers this summer. The program would involve a worker buying into a weekly “full” share, or a bi-weekly share of produce, eggs, milk and other goods fresh from the farm, which would then be delivered in a box to the workplace or picked up by the worker from the farm.

Other Farm-to-Work programs the group has researched have prices of full shares ranging from $400 to $600. Included with the boxes could be a recipe on how to cook the produce.

The boxes, Berg said, vary from season to season, and can depend on weather and other factors. Berg said the program depends on trust.

“Building that trust within the farm and within the program that there is going to be good time and there’s going to be bad time,” she said. “They will never short you.”

Along with the trust that can be built between farmers and workers involved with the program, Pierce said the program can offer food security to people.

“I know where that food came from,” Pierce said.  “I have a lot more confidence that it’s going to be healthy. And if there is an outbreak of some kind I have confidence that I can get the fresh fruits and vegetable that my family needs.”

Healthy, farm-fresh food is not just something that can happen in the summer. Schumaker and Berg said a number of produce can be grown over the winter, like sprouts and kale.

“I think if this got started that maybe more people would be aware of these farms, because they have these connections,” Schumaker said. “Be aware of other foods that are healthier than a cheeseburger.”

Pierce said farm fresh eating is hard for students because while there is a winter farmer’s market, the farmer’s market is more active during the summer. Pierce said there is a learning curve when it comes to students being able to eat healthy when living in the dorms. He points out that Foodlums, an Eau Claire organization that promotes healthy eating, is open for students and even has a vegetable garden in the courtyard of Phillips Science Hall.

Berg said the Farm-to-Work project group plans to send out questionnaires to city employees and local farms within the next week to examine the interest in the program, which they plan to have running in the summer.